‘Expendables 2′ Character Posters: Meet the New Dirty Dozen

As far as the impending slate of hard-hitting action flicks goes, the king of badassery (where cast credentials are concerned) is The Expendables 2. Last week saw the release of numerous G.I. Joe: Retaliation character posters – showing off the improved cast for that sequel – and today we have one-sheets for all members of “The New Dirty Dozen,” who’re uniting for the second Expendables installment.

We’ve once again “scoured” every inch of the ‘Net to round up all twelve Expendables 2 posters, which you can peruse through in the gallery above. Continue on for additional information about the film, along with larger versions of each individual character profile banner.

The majority of the original Expendables‘ cast (those still alive by the film’s end, that is) are returning for the followup – including Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Terry Crews and Dolph Lundgren. Also returning are Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are both expected to play more substantial roles (relatively speaking) for this second round of testosterone-fueled mayhem.

Joining them are two big-name action icons of decades past who were MIA last time – Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris – along with a youngster in the form of Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) and – GASP! – a female Expendable named Maggie, as brought to life by Chinese actress Nan Yu.

Frankly, just about every member of the Expendables 2 team looks pretty wicked on their own, without the added touch of being photographed in black, white and gray (plus the debris and sparks flying everywhere). Suffice it to say, these qualify as some of the better promotional posters we’ve yet to see for any member of the upcoming Summer 2012 movie slate.

CLICK FOR FULL/LARGER VERSIONS

If the sight of so many brawny heavyweights together wasn’t enough to get you aboard the Expendables 2 train: Stallone decided to take a pass on directing the sequel, instead handing over helming duties to Simon West (Con Air). That should help ensure the film doesn’t suffer from the often incomprehensible cinematography that made it hard to even see (much less enjoy watching) the Expendables shoot, stab, slash, punch and pummel everything that got in their way during their first big-screen outing.

Fans of Stallone’s approach to storytelling need not fret either, as he was still involved in writing the Expendables 2 script – with some assistance from people like Ken Kaufman (Space Cowboys) and Richard Wenk (The Mechanic).

That’s all to say: it sounds as though we truly are in for a bigger, better and more badass sequel when The Expendables 2 hits theaters around the U.S. on August 17th, 2012.